Establishing call-centre staffing levels using aggregate planning and simulation approach

This paper presents an approach for determining the personnel capacity levels of a call centre for a telecommunication company. The objective is to determine the staffing levels required to meet a desired service level at a minimum cost. First, data of the number of different requests were analysed to estimate hourly workload requirements. Then, an aggregate planning model were implemented to obtain an initial solution of the staffing levels considering workforce costs, service level, personnel hiring/migration and work supplements. These results were input of a discrete-event simulation model to assess the system performance based on queuing characteristics, demand variability and resources utilisation. Alternative schedules and capacity levels were evaluated to outperform current service quality and a better match with the demand variability. Proposed options provided better results with lower waiting times and more balanced resource utilisation. The approach is useful for planning capacity levels in projects and locating new centres. [Submitted: 18 June 2018; Accepted: 15 March 2019]